


Flags of tenderest green

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allydia - Freeform, Fairy Tale Style, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was once a Queen who ruled a dangerous land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flags of tenderest green

**Author's Note:**

> A tiny fairy tale for Allison and Lydia. I blame/love tumblr for the inspiration.

There was once a Queen who ruled a dangerous land. Her sovereignty was small but prosperous, for she was brilliant and hard-working and unafraid. The people loved to see her on the castle balcony and on her throne, for her wit was fierce and her hair the colour of flame, and she protected them from myriad dangers at their door.

They did not like her consort quite so much. The Prince was handsome and athletic, and cut a dashing figure in his rich cloaks, but he was not kind nor good to the people, and so they merely tolerated him, for their Queen's sake. The Queen, it seemed, loved him with her whole heart; she believed they could do good things together, things that history would remember and admire.

But it was not to be. The Prince was angry and below the brittle, sharp layers of his anger lay fear. It began as a shadow when he was a boy, but he pushed it down and hid it in dark corners and pretended to smile, and there undisturbed the fear grew and grew until it was as deep and dark as a well. Soon, it began to whisper to him.

 _You deserve better_ , it whispered in the long hours of the night. _(You have nothing to offer.) You should be the best. (You are nothing.) Everyone should love you. (You have never been loved.)_

The whisper grew louder than the voice of the Queen, and the fear consumed itself and fed the anger, and slowly the Prince's affection shuddered and warped until there seemed to be no light in the world. And so he gave in and at last he fled. The Prince ordered his carriage on a cold winter morning. He wrapped a travelling cloak around his shoulders and looked long at the Queen, as he could not bear to look at himself. The great doors of the castle closed behind him and the snow began to drift downward from the white sky, silent and unceasing. 

The winter that followed was long. The Queen was busy from dawn til dusk, and then busy some more by the light of candles until the neglected flames stuttered out into darkness. She could not sleep easy in a half-empty bed and neither would she suffer in front of her people, or let them suffer, and so she drew up treaties with neighbouring sovereignties and organised the building of roads and researched the state of her enemies. The Queen worked and worked, and when the candles flickered out in the silence she wished for a kind voice beside her.

But she was not alone as she thought. Unbeknownst to the Queen there was one who watched over her and cared for her troubles and her sighs.

A knight, the leader of the Queen's Guard, watched the Queen with deep, dark eyes -- in the throne room, in the great hall, in the gardens and courtyards she was a silent presence keeping the Queen safe. The Queen, if she was aware of a knight nearby, believed only that her Guard was doing its duty. But the knight, who was brave and strong and bright, knew better: there was duty in her heart but love also, and sorrow, and since that snowy morning when the Prince had left there was also a kind of flourishing, like green shoots pushing through cold earth. She knew the world was changing.

At the end of winter a great enemy laid siege to the castle. The regent of a nearby kingdom, a wily, dangerous man, had tried to negotiate with the Queen for more land and power: he was greedy, he was vengeful, and his once-strong kingdom was on the verge of collapse. He sent messengers demanding terms and in their mouths his words slithered and promised and threatened -- but the Queen was strong. She would give up power to no one. His kingdom must save itself. 

Soon enough the messengers stopped arriving and soldiers came instead, swathes of them like a metallic tide. 

The Queen sent her own army to meet them, and any citizens who wished to fight, and finally she sent out her Guard, her most highly-trained protectors. 

"I will be safe in here," she told them, and so they left her to fight the enemy, all except the knight with the deep, dark eyes.

The Queen noticed. "I will be safe in here," she repeated, ready to shut the door behind this last knight, to shut herself in to wait out the storm, but as always the knight had other ideas.

"I will stay," replied the knight. "I will stay with you. You will be safe with me."

Outside the battle raged.The wily regent slipped away from the fighting and into the castle, and wound his way to the throne room where he knew the Queen would be waiting. There was an antechamber joined to the throne room, his messengers had told him. A little door in an overlooked corridor. There were guards standing at the door but the regent drew them away with lies and threats, killed them, and broke through the door.

"You should have taken my offer," he said as he entered the throne room. Blood dripped wetly from his sword and hands. "You should have been smart."

The Queen raised her chin. "You mean I should have been afraid. Nothing else would make me surrender to you."

The regent smirked and advanced on her slowly. "Come now," he said softly. "I have won. And now your kingdom will breathe new life into mine. Defeat is also a good reason to surrender, don't you think?"

The Queen looked at him and then smiled, though not nicely. She was weary and frightened but she was not defeated, and she was not alone. She had the sense of a body close by her, of the warmth and strength of another person. Someone who believed in her. Someone who would follow her lead. 

"Sweetheart," she said to the smirking regent, mustering her courage. "I don't surrender."

The smirk turned into a scowl and then a look of surprise as an arrow scored through the air and landed with a _thunk_ , burying itself fatally in the regent's body. 

"Nice shot," the Queen said approvingly, as the regent tipped onto the floor in a mass of brocade. 

"Thanks," said the knight, and smiled. Her smile shone sweet and bright, like blossoms in clear spring air, and the Queen noticed. She looked into the knight's face as the knight reached out and gently took her hand. 

The Queen took a new breath. Soon the weather would grow warm and the long days would be filled with sunlight. Suddenly she knew what she wanted.

"Shall we put an end to this war?" she asked, and the knight, whose heart was full of love and duty and honour, nodded knowingly, and stayed always by her side.

**Author's Note:**

>  _The fields are snowbound no longer;_  
>  _There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green._  
>  \-- Very Early Spring, by Katherine Mansfield


End file.
